Contents

Early
life

The son of an immigrant from Ghana, Mohammed was raised in Chicago and attended high school at Kenwood
Academy. Mohammed entered the University of Kentucky in the
fall of 1995 at a hefty 315 pounds, and saw little playing time
during their NCAA
Championship season. After slimming down for his sophomore
year, Mohammed shared the starting center spot with Jamaal Magloire
and was a key contributor in 1997, when the Cats were runners-up to
Arizona. Mohammed would once
again share the starting post position with Magloire in 1998, and
once again they would bring the NCAA Championship home to Kentucky
for the second time in three years.

NBA
career

After his junior year, Mohammed was faced with a decision on
whether to come back to school or enter the draft, and ultimately
decided to enter the 1998 NBA Draft. He was selected by the
Utah Jazz in the first
round, as the 29th pick overall. Utah traded his rights to the Philadelphia
76ers for a future first round pick, which would turn out to be
Quincy Lewis in the 1999 NBA Draft. He would spend two and a half
seasons in Philadelphia. He then played for the Atlanta Hawks
through the middle of the 2004 season, at which point he went to
the New York
Knicks. Mohammed split the 2004–05 season between the Knicks
and the Spurs (who acquired him in a trade for Malik Rose). In a
combined 77 games for both teams, he averaged 9.5 points, 7.6
rebounds, and 1.1 blocks per game. He won the 2005 NBA title
with the San Antonio Spurs as a member of their starting
lineup.

During Mohammed's second season in San Antonio he shared the
starting center position with Rasho Nesterovič,
averaging 6.2 points and 5.2 rebounds per game during the regular
season. He was a key contributor to the team's first round series
victory over Sacramento, averaging 7.0 points per game and nailing
his second career three-point basket late in Game 1.[1]
Mohammed, however, played sparingly in the team's second round
series loss to the Dallas Mavericks. After the season, he
turned down a four-year contract extension and did not return to
the Spurs. On July 4th, 2006, it was announced that he had come to
terms on an agreement with the Detroit Pistons to become their
starting center. After beginning the season in the starting five,
the arrival of Chris
Webber on January 16, 2007 made him gradually fall out of the
team's rotation, the culmination being his 5 minutes in two
postseason contests. He averaged 5.6 points and 4.5 rebounds in 51
games (33 starts), with about 15 minutes of action per game.